Education Week Teacher Assistant Editor Madeline Will, along with other contributors, explores the latest news, ideas, and resources for teacher leaders. Coverage runs the gamut from the inspirational to the infuriating, from practical classroom tips to raging policy debates.

Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Dies at 89

Author Nelle Harper Lee, who emerged as a literary superstar in the 1960s after writing To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at the age of 89, AL.com reports, citing multiple sources.

Lee published Mockingbird in 1960, and it quickly became a staple among high school English teachers. A movie adaptation followed two years later starring Gregory Peck as the book's patriarch, Atticus Finch. Estimates show that more than 40 million copies of To Kill a Mockingbird have been sold since its initial publication, making it one of the most-read novels of all time.

"The stream of new talent which constantly revitalizes American fiction produced at least two first novels of unusual distinction. The first and more ambitious of these was 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' [sic], by Harper Lee. ... What starts out quietly as a picture of small town life is developed with authentic artistry into a climactic courtroom class, in which not only a Negro prisoner is on trial but also the cherished, age-old mores of the South itself. Miss Lee has set it all down with affection, humor and understanding, eschewing sentiment yet favoring pathos."

Born in Monroeville, Ala., in 1926, Lee eventually moved to New York to pursue writing. In the 1950s she submitted a manuscript to Lippincott for a book called Go Set a Watchman, about a young woman named Jean Louise Finch who comes back home to the South to see how life has moved on in her absence. Lee's editor, however, Tay Hohoff, convinced her to write a new book featuring Jean as a young girl coming to grips with racial injustice in her hometown; those revisions eventually became Mockingbird.

In 2015, though, publisher HarperCollins dropped a bombshell: an announcement that it would publish Go Set a Watchman.Watchman quickly became a bestseller, propelling Mockingbird up the bestseller chart once again as well. The publication of that novel was embroiled in controversy, however, with accusations that Lee had never intended to have Watchman published, and that one of her lawyers had strong-armed Lee into reversing course. Lee had suffered a stroke in 2007, and personal accounts, including her sister Alice's, had suggested Lee was not of sound mind toward the end of her life.

Categories:

Tags:

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.